Astheir laughter echoed through the ruins, Isaac noticed a human skull sitting onthe last of the courtyard walls, watching them as they passed.
ChapterFourteen
Water& Flame
Therest of the necropolis passed uneventfully.
Somewherearound the abdomen, the great cavity of space began to end, narrowing down intoa network of tunnels and corridors.Despite being underground for the betterpart of a day, Isaac had grown accustomed to the wide open space afforded bythe city of the dead—in fact, he had even found a certain pleasure in walkingacross the avenues and boulevards, because, to him, it was a completely novelexperience.He had never once been inside a city of this grandeur and scale.Inthat regard, he had felt satisfied, even if the shadow of the necromancersstill hung deeply in the corners.
Becauseof this, the sudden narrowing of their path felt all the more like an abruptdeparture.It was a reminder that they were, indeed, venturing deeper anddeeper into the earth.The good times were ending.
Isaacpaused at the thought.
Werethey good times?
Wasthat how he would look back on this day?
Isaaceyed Zaria, noting the sag in her shoulders, the exhaustion behind her gaze.Hestudied the entrance to the tunnels, wondering if thepuppeteer had laid an ambush.He remembered the way the necromancer had watchedhim leave.
Hesighed.
Eventually,they were more than an hour into the tunnels beneath the necropolis, wormingtheir way through the roughly hewn corridors, much like food passing throughthe intestine of the colossus.Isaac could only guess that there had been anextensive series of aqueducts running along the district—many of the homes,most of them carved from the natural granite, had completely flooded withgroundwater.There were entire rivers now flowing through the streets, thenatural process of erosion slowly dissolving all of the carefully sculptedarchitecture.In a few places, it was still obvious that, once, there had beenfountains, and baths, and sewage lines, totaling a sanitation system moreintricate than many cities enjoyed today, but, most of the time, it hardlyseemed different than an ocean cove.Within a few more centuries, Isaacthought, all traces of culture and art would be gone.
Theymade their way through the tunnels and caves, leaping over canyons carved bythe groundwater, squeezing their bodies through the teeth of growingstalagmites.Some streets were still illuminated with bulbous cartilage posts,but many had fallen into darkness, and Isaac was forced to use several of theirtorches, which cast long shadows on the jutting stone.His worry about thepuppeteer only grew worse.
Afterwhat seemed like hours, they happened to spy a vast,open chamber with a jagged lake in the center.As they approached, Isaac notedthe remnants of ancient pillars, as well as some mosaics barely clinging tolegibility on the floor, which were illuminated by a few bulbous posts ofcartilage.On the walls, there were arched holes carved into a craggy wall,which he initially mistook for arrow slits.
“Oh,shite my shingle,” Zaria said, looking around.“This here’s a bathhouse.”
“Isit?”
“Aye,look there.”
Shepointed at the slits, which now appeared to resemble ventilation shafts, wheresteam from a broiler would pass into the open chamber.This had, indeed, oncebeen a sauna.Now, it didn’t seem much different than a cave.After so manyyears, there was more craggy rock than gentle stone.
“Finally,”Zaria said, throwing her pack from her shoulder.“I’ve been itchin’for a bath.Got a lotta gunk ‘tween the legs.”
“Ididn’t need to hear that.”
“Be agood lad and seal the entrance, would you?”
Aftershrugging off his own pack, he cast a ward into his palm, spreading the thinfilm of purple light around the mouth of the cave entrance.He doubted it woulddo them any good.If the necromancer was determined enough, she could breach iteasily, and the other sorcerer would just command their thralls to blast itdown.
Still,it was better than nothing.
By thelip of the pool, Zaria was hastily shrugging off her clothes.Most of her furwas caked in green blood, but the few unsullied hairs, which were all along hertorso, appeared golden when they caught the light.He could see the muscles ofher back flexing as she unclasped the leather plackart, the shadow of her tailmoving over the curve of her rear, the briefest glimpse of her breasts—
“Isaac.”
Henearly tripped on the roughly worn stone.
She turnedto him, completely naked, still smeared in blood.“You got some purifyingnonsense in that pack of yours?The water’s rather brackish.”
Hefought a very hard battle, keeping his eyes on her face.“Are you—I mean—canthere be some modesty, please?”
“Whatfor?We’ve already fucked, haven’t we?”
“That’s,uh—”
